Hezbollah leader Nasrallah addresses his supporters via a screen in Beirut’s southern suburbs yesterday.


Reuters/Cairo


After Egyptian cartoonist Andeel took to social media to condemn the slaughter of colleagues in Paris, he received expressions of sympathy - often not for the victims but for the suspected Islamist gunmen.
Some respondents on his Facebook page criticised the attack at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, in which 12 people including several of France’s top cartoonists were shot dead on Wednesday.
But Andeel was alarmed by the level of backing for the killings at the French weekly. The 28-year-old satirist said he feared voices of moderation were being drowned out because expressions of hate “are always a lot more colourful and loud”.
The Charlie Hebdo killings were thousands of kilometres from Cairo, and yet reminded Arab cartoonists of the risks they face.
“A lot of people showed so much support for these crimes which is really weird and kind of crazy,” Andeel said.
Freedom of expression was meant to flourish after the Arab Spring revolts brought down autocrats across much of the Middle East and North Africa. Nearly four years later, many people are still watching their step.
Authoritarian rule has returned to many Arab countries while the rise of Islamic State militants who have seized large areas of Iraq and Syria also poses dangers to anyone who dares to debate religion.
Chief among them are satirists, who had felt a greater sense of freedom after the autocrats were toppled in 2011.
“I see what happened (in Paris) as a continuation of what is going on in Syria and Iraq ... The same mentality,” said Hany Shams, a cartoonist at Egypt’s government-run Akhbar Al Youm newspaper.
In Lebanon, satirists say things are easier but far from ideal. Stavro Jabra, a cartoonist whose work is published in two dailies, said he had known some of the Charlie Hebdo victims.
“We want to defend the freedom of the press, the freedom of the media and the freedom of opinion. This is our mission,” said Jabra. Lebanon had more freedom than other Arab countries, but there were still limits that applied to local leaders as well as the multi-ethnic country’s religions. One such was Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shia Muslim movement Hezbollah.
“We can’t get into religions ... If you draw Nasrallah, they will attack you,” said Jabra. “If you draw this person or that, it’s forbidden. You get threats, phone calls, e-mails saying ‘this cannot be drawn’.”
Outside the Arab world in Turkey, cartoonists were targeted by some Islamist writers on Twitter after the Paris attack.
Ibrahim Yoruk, a columnist at the newly-established Vahdet newspaper, warned Turkish satirical magazine Penguen under the #CharlieHebdo hashtag. “You can’t do humour by insulting the faith of the people, Penguen. You should realise this,” he said.
Another user, whose account seemed later to have been suspended, took to Twitter to threaten another satirical weekly called Leman. “God willing the next will be Leman magazine, although there’s more than 12 there to be decapitated,” the user tweeted under the same hashtag.  

Actions of militants worse than cartoons: Hezbollah

AFP/Beirut


The chief of the powerful Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah said yesterday that militants have caused more offence to Muslims than any book, cartoon or film.
In a televised speech, Hassan Nasrallah also said Western countries were aiding militancy by exporting terrorists to Muslim countries.
“Now, more than ever, we need to talk about the Prophet (Muhammad) because of the behaviour of certain terrorist... groups that claim to be Islamic,” said Nasrallah.
“They offended the Prophet of God more than anyone else in history,” he added.
“Through their shameful, heinous, inhumane and cruel words and acts, (these groups) have offended the Prophet, religion... the holy book and the Muslim people more than any other enemy,” said Nasrallah.
And he said that offence was “greater than the books, the films and the cartoons that have insulted the Prophet”.
He did not mention cartoons published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo that led two gunmen to slaughter 12 people at its offices this week, but said the “authors of offensive books and cartoons that were insulting to the Prophet” are among Islam’s enemies.
Nasrallah was indirectly referring to The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, against whom Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious order, to have him killed.
Nasrallah also alluded to a video entitled The Innocence of Muslims, which was distributed online in 2012 and caused an uproar among Muslim communities all over the world.
A series of cartoons showing Prophet Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and Charlie Hebdo was among the media that reprinted them.
Hezbollah joined a string of other Islamist parties and movements and called for demonstrations against those cartoons.
Meanwhile, Nasrallah also said France “exported” militants to the region.
Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters into neighbouring Syria to aid President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war in which he claims that all his opponents are foreign-backed jihadists.
The regime has frequently singled out France for backing the opposition.
Many members of jihadist groups in Syria are Westerners, from countries including France, the United States and Britain.
Cherif Kouachi, one of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo massacres, was involved in a Paris network that helped transport radical Muslims to Iraq to join Al Qaeda’s fight against US forces at the height of their intervention.